


to be a snitch

by MathConcepts



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Andy is soft for Quynh, Booker is not having a good time, Canon-Typical Violence, Conflict, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Sex, F/F, Family Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Joe and Nicky continue to be sappy idiots in love, Light Angst, M/M, Multiple Pov, Nile signed up for immortality, Other, Post-Movie, Unresolved Tension, What's the contingency plan for the lover you thought you lost, and hella mad?, immortal shenanagins, midly dubcon kissing, mildly villanous Quynh, not whatever it is this team has going on, or at least attempted emotional sex, showing up a thousand+ years later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:47:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25500850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MathConcepts/pseuds/MathConcepts
Summary: It's not so many months later that Booker shows up, looking like a French calvary is after him, and rambling nonsensically about things that are getting Andy very, very pissed off."Start making sense, Booker," Andy says coldly, reaching for the labrys that's been lovingly leaned up against the wall near the door, freshly sharpened and polished, and gleaming wickedly in the morning sun, "Or I'll cut your head off and fucking bury it in Croatia."
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Quynh | Noriko, Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Nile Freeman, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 13
Kudos: 151





	to be a snitch

They're all crowded around the breakfast table one sunny day in Barcelona, sampling the wares brought up from a local bakery. There's coffee too, but they never buy that, Joe meticulously brews it whenever it's wanted. Andy's is as black as her hair, Nile has scientifically added a dash of cream and sugar to hers, and Nicky drinks his with lemon wedges and nothing else, like a monster.  
  
Meanwhile Joe has been attempting to give himself diabetes via the amount of sweetener he loads into his cup - he can't help it, he has an incredible sweet tooth - Nicky is proof of that.  
  
"Do you like the coffee, Nile?" Nicky inquires, snagging the last _casadielle_ from under Andy's fingers, earning himself an indignant smack on the shoulder.  
  
  
"Much better than Starbucks." Nile says, saluting him with her mug. So affirmed, Nicky grins at Joe from around a mouthful of his stolen pastry, and Joe leans over to kiss some powdered sugar off the corner of his mouth.  
  
"She likes your coffee." Nicky says as they break apart. Joe grins back at him, hooking his fingers under his chin and pressing his thumb on his lower lip, coaxing his mouth open so he can feed him a little strawberry tart.  
  
"Naturally, my love." he says, and Nicky's tongue darts out to cheekily swipe a little smudge of strawberry filling off the finger Joe is still resting on his lip.  
  
"Are they always like this?" he hears Nile stage-whisper over her mug. Andy snorts, and he feels her eye-roll.  
  
"You don't know the half of it, kid." Nile laughs softly, and Joe feels warmth bloom in his chest. Nile is a wonderful kid, and it's a testament to her and who the young woman is as a person that she accepted them, all of them, with total trust and without judgement. She fits seamlessly into them, and Joe can almost imagine that she has always been there with them, that this is only one of many times they've eaten pastries together in the Grand Central hotel. He has his sketchbook on the empty seat beside him - _Booker's seat_ , a dark little part of his mind supplies - and he thinks to ask if she'll allow him to sketch her after breakfast. One for the records.  
  
But Nicky is looking at him from under half-lidded eyes, he hasn't pulled back from Joe's hand, and Joe reevaluates his plans. He's about to excuse himself and take Nicky into the adjoining room, it'd been Nicky who'd suggested that they pair off in separate bedrooms, " _Nile might want some space,_ " he'd reasoned, and Joe is beginning to see the utter genius of that arrangement. Andy is already eyeing them with an exasperated look, the one that says "you'd better not be planning to fuck the morning away," because she had plans too, and he's sorry, but not really.   
  
He shrugs across the table at her by way of apology, and she sighs and shoves her chair back, rising to her feet and taking a doughnut along the way. "C'mon, kid," she says, and Nile, who is deep into the dregs of her coffee, perks up uncomprehendingly.   
  
"Eh?"   
  
"Nicky is loud," Andy expounds, pauses to bite off and swallow half the chocolate doughnut, then goes on without missing a beat. "You don't want to be around while they're getting into it, trust me."  
  
Nile's eyes dart from her coffee to Joe and Nicky, confused for a moment before widening in comprehension. "Gross, guys." she mutters.  
  
"We'll see you in a few hours." Nicky - the little shit - says, smiling pleasantly.  
  
"Oh, will it take you that long?" Andy inquires, arching a brow at them as she zips herself into one of her many leather coats, radiating an aura of pure passive-aggressiveness.   
  
"Well, they are old." Nile cuts in, taking and tipping the remnants of Andy's coffee into her own cup and slurping the whole thing down. Andy smirks at her, clearly delighted. Ah, fuck. There is nothing that woman needs less right now than an enabler, and she's just found one.  
  
  
"Get out," Joe growls in mock offense, and the two woman laugh. Andy has been laughing more now that Nile is around, and it's good. It's relieving to see her happier, especially now, with a lifetime of mortality dawning on her.  
  
  
Andy finally takes mercy on them and shepherds the youngest immortal towards the door, allowing for Joe and Nicky to make a hasty and fumbling escape to the other room.  
  
"I'll take you shopping, kid." she says. Nile has been begging to go for a while, she has money, a thick wad of petty cash Nicky had bestowed on her when they arrived in Spain, with the instructions to "get herself something nice," which is corny, even for him, and a young person's desire for trinkets. Specifically, some form of electronics. She'd been promised a phone, but without Booker around the necessary adjustments would take some time. A radio is fair game though, maybe even an ipod, if Andy is feeling magnanimous.   
  
Nile collects her purse, a huge, shapeless leather mass with ten goldtone charms apiece hanging from the straps, it's an acquisition she made in a second-hand shop in Bristol, and adjectively the most hideous thing Andy has ever seen, she'd chuck it out at a moment's notice if it wasn't for its one redeeming quality, which is the ability to hold three handguns in its vast depths.  
  
  
Nile is distracted by rearranging some aspect of the purse, and doesn't take notice of the thumping footsteps reverberating down the hall outside until well after Andy does. But when the door bursts open, slamming into and rattling the walls, she's aware enough to plant herself in front of Andy, jerking a gun from the back of her belt.   
  
Booker, who has just unceremoniously broken down their door, holds up a hand in the universal signal to _wait_ and slumps over, planting his hands on his knees and wheezing as he chokes down air.   
  
"Booker?" Nile exclaims, incredulous. "What are you doing here?" Booker stares up at her from behind a fringe of sweaty hair, shaking his head wordlessly.  
  
" _Booker_ ," Andy says from over Nile's shoulder, looking extremely unimpressed, "What the fuck is going on? You're not supposed to be here." Booker's eyes narrow at the mention of his imposed sentence, but he just straightens, running a hand through his disheveled hair, although he's still out of breath.   
  
"She got out," he gasps. "She's here...she's coming for you."  
  
"Who?" Andy growls, and there's a dangerous edge in her voice that makes the hairs on the back of Nile's neck stand up. Booker pauses, his eyes darting to Nile, away from Andy, and Nile has the sinking feeling that whatever Booker is about to say, Andy is _not_ going to like it.  
  
"Quynh, it's Quynh. She's out, Andy."  
  
Andy tenses, Nile can feel her do it, the room suddenly feels ten degrees colder despite the blazing Spanish sun pouring through the windows.   
  
"Start making sense, Booker," Andy says coldly, reaching for the labrys that's been lovingly leaned up against the wall near the door, freshly sharpened and polished, and gleaming wickedly in the morning sun, "Or I'll cut your head off and fucking bury it in Croatia."  
  
It's then that Joe and Nicky decide to emerge, minus various articles of clothing and plus several weapons. " _Booker,_ " Nicky sighs, but Booker hardly pays them any mind, instead focusing on Andy, and by extension, her ax.   
  
"I'm not lying, Andy, I saw her in Paris... I don't know how she found me, she tried to make me tell her where you were. She wants to hurt you, hurt all of us." Booker says imploringly. Nile, who has a thousand questions but enough tact to keep quiet in what she can see is a precarious situation, lets Andy push past her to get to him.   
  
"Book, if you are _lying_ _-_ " she begins, but Booker shakes his head.   
  
"I'm not, I swear. I shouldn't have come, but I had to warn you. She could have followed me here, we all have to go, now." Andy grabs his collar with enough force to startle a grunt out of him, leaning in close.

"She wouldn't hurt us." she hisses. "You don't know her. She would never hurt us, Booker." To his credit, Booker doesn't flinch or try to squirm away, although Nile knows if she was being confronted in that manner by Andy, she would. There's something ice-cold in Andy's manner, something that makes Nile ready to believe Andy will cut him down if she's provoked further.   
  
"She's changed, Andy. Whoever she was before, she's different now." It seem like wrong thing to say, because Andy huffs and shoves him away, hard enough that he has to catch himself on the doorway, glaring at him. "She _killed_ me, Andy, she knew who I was, that I was one of you and she still killed me ten times before I got away."  
  
"She knew you?"  
  
Booker nods, glancing surreptitiously behind him, as if he expects Quynh to come charging down the hall. "She found me at my place...I thought it was one of the casino boys at first, but she was there - "

"Casino?" Nile echoes, picking up the one out of place thread in the conversation up to that point, and gets the first hint of a smile from Booker since he burst through the door.   
  
"Who do you think keeps Andy in all her designer jeans, kid? The money's got to come from somewhere." 

" _Shut up_ , Booker." Andy growls, destroying the moment of levity. "Get your stuff," she goes on, rounding on Nile, "We're leaving."

"Andy," Nicky starts, he's been quietly watching with Joe from the sidelines, and hasn't spoken until now. Andy jerks her head at Booker, cutting him off. "He says...Quynh is back, Nicky. And that she wants to hurt us. We're leaving. Now."  
  
Nicky shares a quick look of concern with Joe, who turns a much darker look on Booker. "You can't know if he's telling the truth, Andy." Joe says.   
  


Andy catches up her ax, shaking her head. There's something in the way that she picks up the weapon that pains Nile. She lifts it heavily, like an old woman might lift a filled basket, and Nile is struck by the sudden urge to help her, but it'll most likely be unwelcome if she troubles. "I trust him on this." Andy says quietly. "If he says she's back, then...she's back."  
  
"How can she be?" Joe presses, "Andy, we looked, we looked for so long. If - "  
  
"We. are. leaving." Andy snarls, grabbing up the corresponding black bag and zipping her beloved weapon into it, turning on her heel and marching out the door, knocking Booker against the frame with one shoulder as she passes him.  
  
" _Fuck_." he sighs as Andy marches away down the hall, and Nile can't agree more with him.


End file.
